*HP ENVY 14 (1XXX series) Owners Lounge, Part 1*

to be honest, i think warranties/insurances are scams. i'm sure they've saved a lot of people money, but i'm also sure that many more people didn't have any use for it at all.

 

To divert the conversation away from the depressing topic of broken laptops...

Googling "Envy 15" 3rvx gave me this as the first result:

"Enjoy!"

I'll be testing this on my desktop as soon as I get on it.

 

New unboxing vid, showing a perfectly quiet e14, no squealing or noisy fans! I don't think this vid is from anyone on the forums here.
YouTube - HP Envy 14 Unboxing

 

So that's it, so far there's like 2-2,5% performance gain from 450m to 520m in multi core tasking.

You guys could do another multi threaded bench to make sure : Wprime 2.03 (its like super pi but multi threaded)
Make sure to do them on IGP with nothing else running on an install without hp stuff eating cpu time heh.

Downloads | wPrime Multithreaded Benchmark

370m people can run it too, it would be nice to know by how much the 370 is behind the 450m (by how much turbo a 0,266mhz boost really boosts lol).

Run both the 32 and 1024 tests, the second one is more accurate but longer to run.

 

The Envy 14 come with a "2-in-1" card reader, could an owner please clarify what are the two cards supported, and if it is possible to upgrade to a more versatile reader? And is HP reasonably good at delivering on/near time?

 

Hi guys,

long time follower, first time poster.... and with long time follower, I mean I've read every single post in this thread. Now before most of you start screaming "add random synonym for liar here", allow me to elaborate: I am a chemistry grad student learning for my final master exams and this thread, my friends, is procrastination heaven... with cream on top...

I'm swiss and as of yesterday afternoon proud owner of my own Envy 14. Since HP Switzerland is only starting to sell it in middle of august it's actually a german one, and because unlike you lucky americans who can customize we only get what HP tells us to get. it therefore has the same specs as the ones already reported (i5-520, 2x2 Gbyte RAM, 500 Gbyte HDD, 1600x900 Radiance, Broadcom WiFi).

First of all a word to price. I can understand that everyone is trying to get the best deal possible, i.e. pay the least amount of hard-earned money, I really think the hunt for BCB etc. went out of perspective. Guys, be happy that you get your stuff for less. I paid the equivalent of US$1500 for mine and guess what: there is no cashback or discount here whatsoever. So please, please stop complaining too much. A little is ok, everyone needs to whine about something: I have exams in less then 3 weeks which totally sucks...

First impressions:
Screen is awesome... and then some. But it's slightly annoying that there is a huge jump in brightness from 100% to the next lower step.

Touchpad is ok (I'm not resting my finger on the buttons) but I'm going to get a mouse anyway. Never was a huge fan of touchpads.

No processor whine here with the i5-520 (not even with my ears on the keyboard)

Built quality: Apart from the keyboard its deserves the name premium. The keyboard is not completely flush at the top (hardly noteworthy) and has some MINOR flex around the P area, but definitely not noticable while typing. During my search of a worthy notebook, I've had several direct competitors to the Envy 14 in my hands (Lenovo Y460, Acer Timeline X 4820TG, HP Pavilion dv6t) and they all had WAY more keyboard flex than this one (not even starting to speak about the screen). Personally I find it sad however, that there is hardly any flex-free keyboard left on the market (at least in the sub-$2000 windows region). My 5 year old Asus had zero(!) flex. But then again, by that time, notebooks were generally more expensive.

Fans/Temperatures: My fans are running all the time on low setting which is ok for me, they can get louder but not overly so. Haven't done any stress testing so far, highest temps were 70 °C and there, the fans were not too loud for my taste. Idle temp (idle in the sense of transfering huge amounts of data over USB) are around 40 °C.

Bloatware: First thing after burning recovery DVDs and saving swsetup folder was a clean install of Win7 Business (MSDNAA FTW). No problem when booting from DVD like others reported and driver installation was a breeze. Everything worked from the start and it cut boot-time in half.

So that's it. I just wanted to give you my 5 cents. I noticed that a lot of potential buyers must be very scared from what they can read here. I just wanted to tell you that I'm very satisfied with my Envy 14 and had ZERO problems at all. Maybe it's just because the german models are preconfigured (maybe they are more carefully built because they are more expensive. But then again, it might also be that the tiny german people running around in my laptop to get tiny little data bits from one the processor to the ram and back are just more productive and better organized ;-).

Always remember that the people in these forums are mostly power-user who are more aware of little things than the average user out there and that people with defective specimens (they exist and I'm honestly sorry for all who got one dumped on them) are far more likely to report their experience in far more detail. But then again, when you get up today, it could be a beautiful and awesome day, maybe an average one or you might suffer from a heart attack the first thing in the morgning.


Such is life....

P.S. thanks for everyone contributing in this forum so far, you really helped me in my decision to buy one of these babies and it's fun to read
P.P.S. The mod in this thread kicks .... ;-)

 

That's the whole point of insurance!

 

Sounds great! Thanks for that, gives me a little more hope that mine won't come a lemon. And I'm defiantly reinstalling the OS.

 

Hey so while reinstalling I saw 4 partitions rather than the 3 others reported. I deleted the one not mentioned (200MB, called "system") and now I cant seem to use that space for anything. Did I mess anything up by deleting it, or is there a way to take advantage of the 200MB unallocated?

 

The first one is set up by windows regardless of what you do. It won't show up in the computer though (you'll only see 3 partitions). The HP Tools partition can be deleted but I was unable to merge it into the a second new partition while installing Windows (from DVD-boot). I did it at a later stage after installing with the windows disk management tool (after formating and deleting the recovery partition).

Hope that helps

 

Have there been any delays in shipping lately? Mine should be shipping tomorrow, hope it's not delayed.

 

I'll be getting the non-BCB laptop on Monday. Should I try doing a clean install on this, since I've never done one before and will be sending it back, or should I just wait until my actual laptop comes?

 

Yeah, power is another issue. I have a Kill-A-Watt and my WHS idles less than 60W. That's still pretty high. I made the stupid mistake of buying WD Scorpio Blacks. I don't know what I was thinking. Idle spec for WD Black is 7.8W and for WD Green is 3.7W. I'm planning on changing four of my five 1TB drives to a 2TB WD Green and that should drop my system wattage by 16W, so an idle draw of ~ 45W isn't too bad.

I would change the system drive to a WD Green, but it requires an entire new install of WHS, and is a big PITA to do, you can't just do a system image either. WHS is based on Server 2003, apparently the second version of WHS will be based on Server 2008 and won't have those limitations. So as long as my system drive doesn't fail, I won't be replacing that drive until WHS 2 comes along.

 

Can we sticky this? Sounds like a good useful app for anyone doing a clean install or even blowing away all HP crapware and configuring it themselves.

 

Bose are overpriced crap. I really liked the Westone UM1s in the $100 range. Then I moved up to the UM3x and they are just amazing.

 

IMHO, a one year accidental warranty makes sense, depending on the cost of the warranty of course. Beyond that, your machine will have depreciated a good 50-60% of its initial value. Unfortunately 1 year isn't always an option. $300 for a two year is almost too much IMHO, and $400 for a three year is atrocious. Your laptop will barely be worth that into its third year most likely

After a year, chances are you can get a screen replaced for less than $300. Most other components (keyboard, trackpad, even motherboard) can be replaced less than $300. Granted with the warranty its less hassle. Heck if you fry part of your laptop, you can always sell parts off and make decent coin back.

I know some people just want it taken care of, I don't blame them, but $300 for a two year is a hard pill to swallow when most people are juggling between the cost savings of an i5-450m and i5-520m, 4GB or 6GB, so $100-$200 is a big deal them, throwing $300 at it for a "something might happen" scenario is expensive.

 

Up to you. I'd leave it alone though if I knew I was getting another laptop.

 

@tre-silk
I myself opted to go with a 3rd party warranty service. My laptop was almost $1400.00 US after taxes and I was able to get a 3 year warranty with accidental damage coverage for 4239.99 which to me seemed like a reasonable price. The warranty was $300.00 to start but then I found a 20% off coupon that lowered it by $60.00. It still ended up being cheaper than any of the warranties that HP could provide me. In addition the warranty service I went with prorates their warranty so if I decide to get a new laptop in 2 years they will refund the last year to me. I bought this warranty the day I ordered my laptop due to the fact that they have a 100% refund policy with in the first 60 days so even if I decide to return this laptop and get something else I can still get all of my money back.
BestWishes,
-mac

 

Question to owners:

Both CoreTemp and HWmonitor show a constant 6-7 °C temperature difference between core 1 and 2 (i5-520). Anyone observed the same?

 

It sounds like you got a defective envy 14 as well with all the issues only you seem to be reporting. It'd still be nice to have that recording of the CPU whine if you don't mind.

 

While I wouldn't call myself a true audiophile I definitely give it more consideration than most folks. When I decided to upgrade the earbuds that came with my sony walkman (no ipod for me!) I found the Klipsch S4's to be perfect for me. There are tons of reviews out there for them and they're all very positive, and for about $80 you can't beat 'em, in my opinion.

Whatever you decide, happy listening.

 

dude, i already told you the result of installing that driver. i posted the error message. it doesnt work!

 

And what about the driver on the synaptics website ?
http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

 

that absolutely didnt work

but hey, guess what, it just magically decided to install the windows default drivers out of nowhere....? it was after booting up and while i was posting that last msg i guess....weird....why didnt it see the ps2 device?

btw, the "unknown device / no driver" in device manager is still there, so windows wasnt even finding the ps2 at all, like it was disconnected...huh?

 

Right click that unknown device, hit properties. Hit details tab then in the dropdown box, select hardware IDs. Report what it says.

 

Just to let you know: I have written a comprehensive reivew of the HP Envy 14 and Linux compatibility. It also contains help getting all components working. If you are interested, head over here: Andreas Demmer Review: Running Linux on the HP Envy 14

 

Acpi\hpq0004
*hpq0004

 

Very nice. Will be added to front page today.

 

HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection. You can find it on Justin's driver page listed as/under HP Mobile Data Protection Sensor.

 

could we maybe get a list somewhere that lists all the bloatware for those of us who want to manually delete things instead of doing a clean install? Or does something like this exist already

 

Technically, everything other than Win7 and drivers is bloatware. So if you look at the driver thread in the driver section for the Envy 14, you can use that as your baseline.

Otherwise, since HP changes their bloat from time to time, a poster would have to list all the bloatware.

 

this touchpad really really sucks

why does the whole touchpad go down when i press on it? is this a button? how do i enable it, theres nothing for it in the synaptics

 

does the envy 14 under-clock itself when on battery.

 

it's a left click?

 

Have you tried double pressing the white dot on the touchpad before installing drivers ? It's supposed to turn on / off the touchpad normally, so maybe it's turning it on off on a hardware level, thus preventing you from installing drivers ?

 

oh ok, thanks.. haha if it isnt noticeable from my post, i'm not as computer savy as everyone else posting in here.. but i feel like i am learning just by reading.

 

@ 2.0

Sanitation Engineer? Congratulations on your promotion.

Bronsky

 

Try it again now that you reported the win 7 driver was loaded and it is recognizing your device....

The reason it sucks right now is that your using the generic MS driver with no synaptics sofware / drivers.

If it is 'going down' on the bottom edge then yes that is where the buttons are, both left and right click.

 

Is there any possibility of getting blue-ray in this thing via swapping the optical drive at some point in the future?

 

no, i installed the synaptics and went through its settings already.

i have sensitivity on max and its not very responsive to 2 finger scrolling, and scrolling iself is unweildy (and yes, i have 1 line at a time scrolling set)

 

hm, now it wont let me switch to the intel graphics, even though im on battery power


is there any way to set the intel as default?

 

if the pad goes down on all 4 corners that means its the new buttonless synaptics pad, but those probably won't show up until gen2. that new pad is supposed to be just as good as a mbp pad.

 

oh. so that's why you didn't let me install the synaptics driver.


HP or synaptics, one of you are incompetent. Your setup defaults to the x86 version. you gotta go into the x64 folder and run dpinst from there.

 

Has anyone gotten a message saying that their power pack is not right, something like that?

 

if you press down on the center it clicks....


so far it does nothing. is there a way to make it so 2 finger tap will act as a right click and drop a context menu? makes copying and pasting so much easier

 

nope (10char)

edit: my nope was to the guy with the power brick issue

 

Well, I received my HP Envy 14 and have been spending some of the weekend messing with it. The verdict? It's going straight back to HP on Monday. Here are some of the reasons:

1) Intel 520m processor. In their bone-headed wisdom, HP decided this would be the highest-powered dual core processor option. Instead of offering the 540m or 620m, which would have been much better, they decided instead to offer three quad-core options that are meaningless to most notebook users (as I've personally witnessed, the quad-core i7s have major problems running many applications optimally, run far too hot, and don't offer switchable graphics). It is quite shocking HP deliberately elected not to offer the 540m or 620m in its flagship notebook, especially when smaller systems (like one of the Sony 13" notebooks I looked at) offered faster dual-core processors. Granted, I obviously bought the notebook with this in mind since I had to choose the 520m though I had some hope that the processor would run faster. However, in putting it through benchmark tools and monitoring through CPU-Z I discovered that the processor is almost always running at 2.66ghz in turbo mode, rather than the 2.9ghz it's advertised at. Not surprisingly, the system is no faster than my current 2.66ghz C2D in almost all situations.

2) Bezel. I hadn't noticed this on the Envy 15, but with the 14 at least, the bezel has a thin rubber outer edge to it, probably to create a "seal" when you close the lid. This is the dumbest architectural feature I can imagine; in another few years that rubber is going to harden and crack all around the edges and just look terrible. I tried, but I don't think you can get rid of the bezel. Other manufacturers offer "edge-to-edge" glass which not only looks far better but it is much more sensible architecturally.

3) Mousepad. It's inexcusably terrible. To begin with, the pad is far too big. Even on a 17" notebook it would be too big, but on a 14" notebook it's just silly looking, and gets in the way all the time. I found myself having to position my wrists at a ridiculous angle just to position my fingers on the keys properly without accidentally hitting the mousepad. I could imagine that would cause major pains in my hands after even short periods of typing. Second, the mouse "buttons" at the lower part of the pad double as the mouse surface itself, and since fingers tend to rest on the buttons of mousepads I found myself constantly fighting to just get the pointer to go where I wanted it to go. I don't think there's a way to turn this off. Finally, there's no veritcal scrollbar on the left or right that I could tell. All this adds up to the worst mousepad experience I've ever had by orders of magnitude.

4) Beats audio. Anyone who tells you this is decent audio is just full of it. I own a Dell Studio XPS 16, and as much as I hate Dell (mostly due to their terrible support) the sound on this system makes the HP Envy sound like a joke with its tinny sounds. Though the Studio 16 is a 16" notebook, HP could have fit a small 1/2" subwoofer somewhere in the case as Dell did, which would have improved the sound substantially. Heck, even my old Inspiron notebook sounds far better than this.

5) Media. Since I am used to immediately wiping the hard drive and doing a fresh install of the OS (to get rid of all the vendor bloatware that slows the system down), I made sure to ask the HP sales guy if the system would ship with the Windows 7 DVD media. He assured me it would. When I got the computer I had discovered he had just flat-out lied to me. I called back and was told that the system had a partition that allowed you to burn "rescue media" to restore the system to its original state. In other words, worthless. This was the final slap in the face.

Anyway, I hate to sound so vitriolic but I needed to let other would-be buyers of this terrible system know my thoughts. It does have some nice features I should mention in fairness: it runs cool even when the CPU is maxed, and the case is light and decent looking. With that said, I'd caution people to stay far away from this garbage.

 

Just finished playing the intro of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (The pit) on 1600x900, all details (shadows etc.) on, textures on high (not ultra) and AA off. Runs smooth, didn't notice any lags so far and temps stay in the low 70 °C range for both CPU and GPU according to HWMonitor.

Edit: with texture quality on extra and 2xAA, I've got between 30-40 fps. Smoke is a killer on these settings however as it drops below 20 fps. Above settings are well within playable range in native resolution.

 

wow, what a bunch of lame complaints

you dont like the cpu that you picked out?
the touchpad is too big? ?
the bezel from hell?

i dont think you'll ever be happy with a laptop

 

If anyone is wondering about eSATA drives and the combo port on their envy I put a little info over in the general hardware section. Also wanted to mention the Logitech n315 lapdesk works really well if anyone is a lounge chair extraordinaire like myself . I picked mine up for 27 at Amazon. The Envy 14 fits nice on it withquarter inch extra space all around. Non slip surface and weighs 1lb 13.7oz according to postal scales.